CITIZc N I \i\TONDER If you go to picture exhibitions and if you saw the draw- ings at the W Gallery a month or so ago. Italian drawings, by a woman- Effie Alldraxen. Ver)1 good notices the critics gave her. Very gratifying to me. She is mv daughter. There was one large drawIng that several of our friends mentioned-typically Italian, the picture of one of those palazzo courtyards in Rome with a statue in it. It was the one she called "The Father." She caught that feeling you have in Rome, of statues being everywhere- stone people (do you know?), threat- ening, appealing, almost walking about, crowding in, pushing the living off the pavement. One of the critics said she made the figure live-a curious state- ment, I thought, because stone and hronze are dead, aren't they? Of course, I don't know anything about art. I'm just a layman, a doctor. My business is illness. What Interested me when I went to look at Effie's show was that the child was ill when she was doing the best of that stuff. I say "child"- a father's slip of the tongue; she is turned forty. I shall hope not to sound harsh, but Effie has not been an easy child. I would describe myself as detached. I see so many sick people. She has been sending us telegrams all her life, and before I opened the one she sent from Rome, where she was doing that picture, I thought, Now what meSS has she got intor Effie's telegrams read as though she is doing her face in the mirror-a dab here, a dab there, but with words. It went "IN HOSPITAL, MOTOR AC- CIDENT. NO BONES, NOT SERIOUS, DON'T WORRY, JUST BAD BREAK- DOWN. CAN YOU COME IMMEDI- ATELY, NOT TO BOTHER, PLEASE IF POSSIBLE VERY WELL." Children tear at one's bowels. In eIght hours, I was out of the London rain and sitting by Effie's bedside in Rome, listening to her childish voice. She had not been in a motor accident. She had been pushed by the bumper of a slow-moving car in the Corso and had been knocked down by a bicycle. "I think-" she said after we had gone over the incident several tImes. "I think," she said, stubbornly puttIng up her chin, "I must have been trying not to get married." Effie is a smal1 woman, and although she is growing plump, she looks younger than she is. She will be forty-one next June. She was sitting up in bed, and she had the pleased, shining, new, ashamed look, rather wet and cunning, of a golden spaniel that has been dressed up in shawls by children and is presently going to make a bolt for it into the gar- den "To Mr. Wilkins," she saId "And who IS he?" I asked. "He was on the train when you saw me off from London. Schoolmaster," she said. For testIng one out, she has a small, high, plaintive voice. "1 don't remember him," I said. "But what is the matter? Is he married already?" One of the difficulties of Effie's life has been her love of other women's husbands. "Oh, no! " said Effie, giving a squea] of pleasure. She loved this kind of con- versation "He hasn't got a wife" Then she looked at me very slyly. Effie is proud of her turbulent history. "I sup- pose his not being married is the trou- ble," she said. Effie has two voices and two kinds of laughter. Her usua] voice is small and sweet-the matter-of-fact VOIce of a girl of five, and she uses it for things that are true The laughter that goes -... "'" ,,, '\ GD \ ', j > ,":'. .::. " , "" "" '" ,... -' ',' ""', . "'" , 41 with it is the high squeal that used to enchant us when she was little This voice is, no doubt, too arch for a woman of her age. Her other voice is dry, abrupt, grown-up, bold, and mannish, and It drops to short, doggish barks of laughter. In this voice, Effie does not often tell the truth I knew now that Effie was going to tell me a lie next, because she arranged her bed- clothes and looked me gruffly In the eye. "You are going to be cross with me," she said, in the brisk manner "I've started doing it again." "\i\That? " "Making happenings," she said. She blushed I did not answer. "I'm being followed," saId Effie. "By Mr. Wilkins?" I said, guessing "Oh, no, no," she barked. "By some Italian?" I said. Effie was so startled that she stopped laughing. I could see that I had put an idea into her head, perhaps for use in the future. There IS something innocent about her She had been a fortnight in Italy and it had not occurred to her ) c )) v0-- r "There)s no hot water.))